© Mohammed Badra/EPA, via Shutterstock
The musician is back with a live album and as passionate as ever. She discusses fans, failure, muses, misogyny – and why she won’t tolerate bad behaviour
By the third UK lockdown, Tori Amos was wondering if she would ever play live again. At her remote house in Cornwall, where we meet, she began mourning the loss of connection with her audience. When the US singer and songwriter is on tour, giving her famously passionate performances, hundreds of letters pour in every day, requesting songs. “I try to read as many as I can, and we change the show every night, except the bookends. Anything else is up for grabs.”
Her relationship with her fans has always been collaborative. They tell her things. They trust her. In person, she has an open-book quality that immediately draws you in. When I arrive at her place – a detached but unassuming house upfront, and a warren of more recently built workshops at the back, filled with beautiful pianos, a massive mixing desk and the harpsichord she played on her album Boys for Pele – we have lunch with her husband and sound engineer, Mark Hawley. The conversation roams through football, raving, legal training (their 24-year-old daughter Tash is studying law in Washington DC) and how good the pumpkin soup is.
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© Photograph: Jenna Foxton/The Guardian
© Photograph: Jenna Foxton/The Guardian
Canonisation has long been a way for the Catholic church to shape its image. The Vatican is preparing to anoint its first millennial saint, but how does it decide who is worthy?
As a child growing up in Milan, Carlo Acutis collected stories of miracles. He wrote about the time when, in 1411, wine turned to blood in a castle chapel in Ludbreg, Croatia; of how, in 1630, a pastor in Canosio, Italy, saved his town from a flood by blessing the raging waters; of how, in 1906, a priest on the island of Tumaco, Colombia, held up a reliquary on the beach to stop an approaching tsunami. Acutis, 11 years old and a devout Catholic, began typing up these stories and posting them on his website, which he styled as a “virtual museum” of miraculous events. A section on the site invited visitors to “discover how many friends you have in heaven”, and to read stories of young saints.
Acutis hoped to one day join their ranks. He was convinced that he would die before he reached adulthood and told his mother, Antonia, that he would perish of “a broken vein in his brain”. He wanted to be buried in the town of Assisi, where his family had a summer home. In the meantime, he devoted his life to the church, which was a surprise to his largely secular parents. As a teenager, he taught catechism classes to young children, and offered them a step-by-step guide to becoming a saint. ““Always remember that you, too, can become a saint!” he would say. Every day, they were to go to mass, recite the Holy Rosary, read the scripture and confess their sins.
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© Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP
© Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP
What if you could take a pill or a shot that could reduce your blood alcohol level and make you feel better in the morning? That’s the promise of a range of wellness products aiming to be the next big hangover antidote. But what exactly are hangovers, and which methods of preventing them are backed by science? Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dr Sally Adams, an alcohol researcher and associate professor of psychology at the University of Birmingham
Clips: @drinklikecut, @visitourmedia, @thegutgirlie, @settingthebrowlow
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© Photograph: Anastasiia Yanishevska/Alamy
© Photograph: Anastasiia Yanishevska/Alamy
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Sanny Rudravajhala and George Elek as the Sky Blues get their man and Chris Wilder’s Blades continue their great form
Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.
On the podcast today; Frank Lampard’s Coventry (as we are duty bound to call them) begin with a draw against Cardiff City. The panel debate whether this is a good appointment.
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© Photograph: Barrington Coombs/PA
© Photograph: Barrington Coombs/PA
Actor and comedian Diane Morgan joins Grace for another helping of Comfort Eating. Diane is best known for playing mockumentary historian Philomena Cunk, droll antihero Liz in the critically acclaimed BBC sitcom Motherland, and Mandy in … Mandy. Diane reveals how she keeps a straight face when asking world experts very silly questions, why she was sacked from her waitressing job, and what happened when she tried to introduce hugging to the Morgan family.
If you liked this episode then have a listen to Grace’s conversations with Aisling Bea, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, and Jamie Demetriou
New episodes of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent will be released every Tuesday
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© Photograph: Emily Badescu/The Guardian
© Photograph: Emily Badescu/The Guardian
© Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press
Only seven spade-tooth whales have ever been documented, now work is beginning on a specimen that washed ashore in New Zealand in July
A spade-tooth whale – thought to be the world’s rarest whale species – is undergoing dissection in New Zealand, in the first ever examination of a complete specimen.
Spade-toothed whales are a type of beaked whale named for their teeth resembling the spade-like “flensing” blade once used to strip whales of their blubber. Just seven have been documented since the 1800s, with all but one found in New Zealand.
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© Photograph: Department of Conservation NZ
© Photograph: Department of Conservation NZ
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